On The Book Piles VIII

What's kicking around on the book piles right now? It's a good question. This feature will become far less frequent once the new year of studies commences in a few weeks, but for now we will have a brief post and try to get it through some very erratic Internet availability. 

'Journey To The West v2' by Wu Cheng'En

Finally, the end of volume two is approaching, and with it the halfway point of the epic. Is it really all about Monkey, or is there going to be a shift toward rehabilitating the other three main characters, who have so far been pretty useless bystanders amidst all the manic events? It's a classic episodic epic, but I have no idea how it's all going to resolve over the last two volumes. Many things can happen in well over a thousand tightly packed pages...

'The Voyage Of The Beagle' by Charles Darwin

Lots of progress with the Beagle, and it's becoming more and more enjoyable to read, presumably as a result of Darwin becoming more practiced in his prose? The action is still in South America, with revolutions and unrest in the air, but we'll be moving on soon enough. It's nice to read about flora, fauna, and the environment. And changes in the environment due to generational human interventions. It's all still going on now, if only we could be aware of it.

'The Conan Chronicles v2: The Hour Of The Dragon' by Robert E Howard

It's time for the last story, 'The Hour Of The Dragon', and in a few days it will all be over. There will be no more new Conan stories by Robert E Howard. No more unexpected twists or fusions of mythology into this 'lost age' of human history. Yes, the dark magic is extremely dark and horror-infused, but it's all very enjoyable nonetheless. Once it's all over, these Conan stories will go into the incredibly small subset of short stories that will actually be reread. That's a rare thing indeed.

'Enterprise: The First Adventure' by Vonda N McIntyre

I'm just a few pages into the re-read for this classic 'Star Trek' novel, and it's already a very lovely experience. There are many different versions of the earliest adventures of the famous Enterprise crew, but this one does the best job of fitting as many things together as possible while still being a decent story. In fact, it probably goes too far, as a lot of the continuity disconnect in the earliest episodes could just be written off as typical teething problems. Vonda N McIntyre was one of the classier early authors in the series. Well done so far!

'Galileo's Daughter' by Dava Sobel

No progress since last time, but it will get going once the Beagle's voyage is finished. Well, this and Herodotus. Weighty times ahead.

'The Goddess And The Thief' by Essie Fox

No progress so far. It's just sitting there. Will it be good? I have no idea.

O.